Written by HLRBO Staff|
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A presidential order signed September 17 directs agencies to permit traditional lead ammunition on federal land, one Forest Service comment period closed September 23 after logging more than 124,000 comments, and another stays open until October 6. September also brought a farm bill out of Senate committee, a refuge rule that quietly reversed a nonlead phase-in, and roughly half a million acres of CRP heading for the exit on the thirtieth.
The hunting executive order, signed September 17
President Trump signed an executive order titled Reinvigorating America's Hunting Heritage on September 17, 2026. Section 1 opens with the line that "American hunters, anglers, and landowners are the greatest conservationists the world has ever known," and everything after it runs on agency deadlines rather than immediate effect. Interior has 90 days to allow hunting in Castle Mountains National Monument and Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, and 180 days, with Agriculture, Commerce and War, to propose broader access expansions with national parks excepted. Interior has a year to encourage states to expand Sunday hunting.
The provision that will draw the most argument is short. Agencies are directed to "permit the use of traditional lead ammunition and tackle." The order reaches private ground only indirectly, pointing agencies toward "voluntary access easements, land exchanges, cooperative agreements" for landlocked federal parcels and toward "voluntary agreements with private landowners and agricultural producers." Nothing in it changes state seasons, bag limits, licensing or a private lease. A fuller account of the order ran here on September 24. What has changed since is the timing: none of this is self-executing, and every deadline above produces a proposal that goes through notice and comment.
Roadless Rule comments run to October 6, and the docket is enormous
USDA published its proposal to rescind the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule on August 20, 2026 with comments due September 21. The agency then published an extension on September 11 pushing the deadline to October 6, 2026. As of September 20, 2026, docket FS-2025-0001 showed 228,160 comments, and it is still taking them.
The rescission would lift the national prohibition on road construction, reconstruction and timber harvest across roughly 45 million acres of inventoried roadless area in 37 states. Agriculture Secretary Brooke L. Rollins framed it as a wildfire measure, saying "our forests can't afford another decade of inaction," and the Forest Service points to its own finding that more than 40 percent of inventoried roadless acreage carries high or very high wildfire hazard potential while about 5 percent has seen fuel treatment since 2014.
The hunting and angling groups that have weighed in are lined up against it. Ryan Callaghan, President and CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, called the proposal the wholesale elimination of protections for the backcountry habitat hunters, anglers, wildlife and rural communities depend on. Trout Unlimited's Chris Wood argued the agency's own data contradicts the fire rationale, since fuel treatments occur more often in roadless areas than elsewhere on the forest system. The elk-habitat side of it ran here on September 28. What changed since is the calendar: comments close October 6.
The Travel Management Rule window is closed
The comment period on the Forest Service's travel management rewrite closed at the end of September 23, 2026. The agency published a notice of intent on August 24 under docket FS-2026-0100 and RIN 0596-AD70, opening an environmental impact statement and rulemaking to revise 36 CFR part 212.
The proposal flips the default. Existing roads, trails, airfields and trailheads would be presumed open unless closure is required by law or supported by documented, science-based reasons, and closed routes would face annual review. It would also set conditions for limited off-route motorized use for downed big-game retrieval, firewood collection and dispersed camping, the piece most likely to matter to Western elk and deer hunters. Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz said the notice of intent "provides the legal foundation to streamline and modernize the Travel Management Rule."
Here is the derived figure worth holding onto, with the caveat attached to it. Docket FS-2026-0100 showed 124,226 comments as of September 20, 2026, the 27th day of a 30-day window, which works out to roughly 4,601 a day. That is the last figure this piece could verify. The Forest Service had not posted a closing tally for the September 23 cutoff by the time this went to press, so treat 124,226 as a floor rather than a result. Add the roadless docket's 228,160, a September 20 snapshot of a docket that stays open until October 6, and the two Forest Service access proposals had drawn at least 352,386 comments between them as of that date. Both numbers are larger now. The travel rule got a fuller look here on September 22, while it was still open. Existing motor vehicle use maps stay in effect until revised, and USDA expects a proposed rule and draft EIS in spring 2027, final rule early 2028.
There is no October shutdown, and the stopgap runs to December 11
This one is a correction rather than news. The President signed H.R. 6500, the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027, on September 2, 2026, funding federal agencies through December 11, 2026. Refuges and Forest Service districts are staffed for the opening weeks of most fall seasons.
The 43-day closure that ran October 1 through November 12, 2025, the longest in U.S. history, did strand refuge and forest staffing during last year's season. That was last year. Check the dateline, because December 11 is the date that matters now.
Senate Agriculture moved a farm bill, and CRP kept its ceiling
The Senate Agriculture Committee marked up and passed the Agricultural Act of 2026 on September 16, 2026, on a party-line vote, and Chairman John Boozman has indicated a floor vote will wait until after the November midterms. The bill reauthorizes the Conservation Reserve Program and lifts the CRP payment limitation to $125,000, the first increase in the program's history, while holding the acreage ceiling at 27 million acres, with 12 million of that reserved for Grasslands CRP.
The number hunters should watch is not in the bill. FSA accepted 2.2 million acres in the 2026 CRP signup against nearly 2.5 million offered, under the 27-million-acre cap. Of the nearly 1.5 million acres expiring September 30, 2026, producers submitted re-enrollment offers on just over 982,000. Subtract and roughly 500,000 acres drew no re-enrollment offer at all. Some goes back to row crop, some sits idle, and the habitat math on it is not neutral. FSA Administrator Bill Beam said the program "continues to demonstrate the strength of voluntary, producer-led conservation across the country." The CRP cap got a fuller look here on September 26 and the farm income pressure behind it on September 29, when ERS put 2026 net farm income at $158.4 billion, down 2.6 percent.
Nine refuges will not go nonlead after all
The Fish and Wildlife Service published its 2026-2027 station-specific hunting and sport fishing rule on September 1, 2026, at 91 FR 56290, effective August 31. The headline is access: hunting or fishing opens or expands at 111 field stations, including first-time openings at 14 refuges and 3 fish hatcheries, more than 1,450 opportunities in all.
Buried in the same rule, the Service rescinded lead ammunition and tackle requirements at nine refuges, finalized in 2022 and 2023 with delayed effect and scheduled to take hold September 1, 2026. Table 1 of the rule names them: Patoka River in Indiana, Great Thicket and Rachel Carson in Maine, Blackwater, Eastern Neck and Patuxent Research Refuge in Maryland, Erie in Pennsylvania, and Chincoteague and Wallops Island in Virginia. The Service separately rescinded the lead-free requirement that already applied on the Big Cove unit of Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge in West Virginia. The Service kept nonlead requirements where it found them compatible with state regulations. A fuller account of the refuge rule on September 29; what changed since is the executive order above, which points the whole federal apparatus the same way. Station rules still vary, so read the station brochure rather than a summary.
Screwworm reached a Texas horse, and a new zone went under restriction
APHIS confirmed New World screwworm in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas on June 3, 2026. That animal recovered and the case is inactive. Detections did not stop there. Cases in cattle, goats, sheep and dogs followed through the summer, including a dog in Crockett County on August 31, 2026, and on September 9, 2026 an infestation was found in the hind limb of a working ranch horse in Presidio County, in the Big Bend country of far West Texas. USDA confirmed it on September 15 as the first equine case in the United States in roughly six decades. The Texas Animal Health Commission issued a movement order the same day it was found, establishing a new infested zone across parts of Presidio and Jeff Davis counties, where warm-blooded animals cannot leave the zone without authorization, inspection and any required treatment.
The picture is therefore two-directional rather than a clean retreat. On August 31, 2026, APHIS did release two infested zones from restriction, one covering portions of La Salle and Webb counties and one covering portions of Gillespie, Kerr and Kimble counties. Restrictions expanded elsewhere in the same stretch. USDA's detections dashboard counted roughly 50 confirmed animal cases as of September 20, 2026, every one of them in livestock or pets and none in wildlife, spread across Texas counties including Presidio. The Texas Animal Health Commission put it at 17 counties and 39 premises as of the same date.
The wildlife exposure has not resolved. Texas Parks and Wildlife lists white-tailed deer, jackrabbits, cottontails, small mammals and turkeys among the species more commonly affected, and unlike cattle, deer cannot be inspected on a schedule. TPWD asks hunters and landowners to report suspect wildlife at (512) 389-4505. USDA's sterile fly dispersal facility at Moore Air Base in Edinburg is complete, but the $610 million production plant beside it is not scheduled to make flies until fall 2027. Screwworm and deer season got a fuller look here on September 24.
Duck numbers slipped, and the bird flu advisories are back
The Fish and Wildlife Service released the Waterfowl Population Status report on September 1, 2026. Total breeding ducks in the traditional survey area came in at 33.4 million, similar to 33.9 million in 2025 and 6 percent below the long-term average since 1955. Mallards fell 11 percent to 5.9 million, 26 percent below the long-term average and the lowest estimate since 1993. May ponds went the other way, up 14 percent to 4.8 million. Dr. Steve Adair, Chief Scientist at Ducks Unlimited, said the results "are largely consistent with our expectations, as last year saw the lowest recorded May pond count since 2004."
State agencies are pairing the openers with avian influenza guidance. Wisconsin's DNR, in a September 15, 2026 release naming game bird specialist Taylor Finger, opened regular goose season September 16 and duck season September 26 in the Northern zone and reminded hunters that "waterfowl can be infected with the avian influenza virus without showing signs of disease." The guidance is unglamorous and consistent across agencies: leave sick and dead birds alone, keep dogs off them, wear gloves, field dress in ventilated air, cook to 165 degrees. A fuller account of H5N1 and waterfowl on September 26, and nothing in the federal detection picture has shifted materially since.
What to actually do with this
Half of what is above is still a proposal, which means half of it can change before it touches a single season. The one piece already law is the stopgap, and it expires December 11. The one with a clock on it is the roadless docket, open until October 6.
The through-line for anyone who leases ground is that federal access policy is moving one direction while federal habitat acreage moves the other. Roughly half a million CRP acres come off the books when September 30 closes, with no re-enrollment offer behind them, while two Forest Service dockets drew better than a third of a million comments arguing about who gets to drive where. Private ground sits in between, and it is the part nobody has to file a comment about. HLRBO's Lease Finder shows what is open near you this fall, which is a more useful answer than a docket number.